


On The Binding of a Powerful Free Magic Sorcerer

by redfive86



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:38:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redfive86/pseuds/redfive86
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a manuscript entered into the Library of the Clayr, Abhorsen Belatiel reflects on one of the most important moments during his tenure as Abhorsen as he prepares to handle an emergent threat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On The Binding of a Powerful Free Magic Sorcerer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NightsMistress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/gifts).



_[Librarian's Note: This manuscript was entrusted to the Clayr upon the deal of Abhorsen Belatiel.  This manuscript was entered into circulation in the Chief Librarian's reserve collection by Jyrelle, daughter of Brieth (Jyrelle XI), Chief Librarian._

_The manuscript is not itself dangerous or of nefarious nature.  It has been bound with marks of warding, deception, and misdirection and chained with silver to do the sensitivity of its contents.  It is forbidden to all save the current Abhorsen or the Abhorsen-in-Waiting and may only be accessed by the Chief Librarian in the presence of the requestor.  Information regarding the contents of this manuscript has been added to the Book of the Dead and registered with Mogget, servant to the Abhorsen, to be provided at the appropriate time.]_

**The Manuscript:**

I write of the binding of Clariel, daughter of Master Goldsmith Jaciel, granddaughter of Abhorsen Teriel.  Clariel, cousin and friend to me, a powerful mage with little training who was placed in Abhorsen's house for safekeeping following the murder of her parents by Governor Kilp.  She escaped the House with the Mogget and two Free Magic beings, Aziminil and Baazalanan under her control.  She fled back to Beliasere in an attempt to save the King and her remaining relatives.  

At first, I believed her to be a deceiver. I believed she had betrayed my trust and manipulated me to gain access to the hidden secrets of the Abhorsen.  When I arrived in the throne room at the head of the Palace Guard, the sight of her lying crumpled at the foot of throne, wounded and straining for the Mogget... I knew I had not misjudged my cousin. She was a kind soul, but uneducated and misguided, not unlike myself at the time. She fell victim to the inescapable allure of raw power that Free Magic offers the untrained. Or so I thought. I thought many things. So few of them turned out to right.

We wrapped Clariel in a hastily-spelled cloak and carried her down the 156 narrow stone steps to the reservoir to heal her.  It was a slow process, trying to navigate the dark stairs without further harming or touching her.  Mistress Ader and I placed Clariel into the center of one of the barges moored at the landing and rowed out past the intricately carved columns into the vast cavern of the reservoir.  Mistress Ader took Cleave and cast a spell as I rowed between two of the massive, jagged Great Charter stones.  One fiery gold charter mark shimmed down the blade of Cleave and seemed to explode over the nearest Stone. We rowed into the center of the glowing circle to bind and heal Clariel.  Mistress Ader- Aunt Maderael- took Belager and Ranna from my bandolier, holding them by the clapper and placing them carefully, one by one, on the plank in the barge.  "There is great power in these stones," she told me. "The power of these two will be much greater here than anywhere else."  She gave me a long, appraising look and handed me Belager carefully.  "Belager and Belatiel, a good match," she chuckled softly.  "The two should be sufficient to bind her Free Magic without sending her spirit into Death."  I took the mahogany handle of the bell and held it carefully in both hands, unsure what to do next.  

Many times in my early training I was deeply grateful for my Aunt's guidance and experience, but never more than that moment.  I, the self-taught Abhorsen, would not long survived without the retired Abhorsen to lead me, even for only a short time.  "Listen to the bell," she told me.  "You will know what to do with it."  She stood impossibly straight at one end of the barge and raised Ranna in front of her, holding the bell formally with both hands.  I looked into the silver of the bell and saw-or felt- the motion of the bell required.  I raised Belatiel above my head, the dark wood handle in my right hand.  Mistress Ader nodded and I swung Belager in a spiral above my head, circling in and out.   Clariel's body twitched in the bottom of the barge, contorting into unnatural angles as a faint bright-white shadow began to shine under of her body.  "You must use your will, Belatiel!" shouted Mistress Ader.  I focused on the bright shadow, using my fears for Clariel's safety, worry about her future, and my love for her to guide the bell's will.  The bright shadow twisted in the air, growing and flickering around Clariel's body until I worried that she might be consumed in her own rescue.  Suddenly I remembered a passage from the Book of the Dead and the charter marks needed to complete the binding.  I formed them in my mind and drew them with my left hand, wincing at the pain as I flung them at the bright-white shadow burning in the center of the dark cavern.  

It wasn't until it was over that I dared look directly at the figure in the bottom of the barge.  I'll never forget the sight of Clariel crumpled in the bottom under the dim glow of a weak charter light.  I handed Belager back to Mistress Ader and slowly knelt down to shift the cloak off the limp body.  I drew marks of healing over her torso to complement those Mistress Ader had place to staunch the bleeding.  Mistress Ader sat next to Clariel gracefully, back-straight, perfectly composed in the small barge, and began to stich her wound carefully as if the human was a new embroidery.  I turned to the bronze face, unsure of how to proceed.  "That will require better light and more care than we can provide down here," Mistress Ader whispered.  I placed a finger gently against the edge of the bronze, expecting to find it warm from the the bright shadow.  Instead, it was cold as the river in Death. I lifted the mask very gently with my fingertip and felt it shift slightly.  It came away from the bottom of her face easily but was stuck to her forehead by a matted mess of blood, hair, and skin.   I spoke the strongest marks of healing I could think of, drawing on the ready power of the great stones to provide inspiration and the power to speak them and start Clariel's healing.  It took both Mistress Ader and I to remove the mask, carefully separating metal from that which is under the skin where Clariel's charter mark had been.  The mark itself came free from the rest of her forehead, fused to the bronze and burnt black with the corruption of Free Magic.  Mistress Ader made to melt the mask over the water of the reservoir, but I stopped her.   

"She may need something to cover the scarring after she heals," I said.  "This is already formed to her features and will give her something to cover her wounds as she heals."  I stuck my head out for the mask as I spoke.  Mistress Ader handed it to me slowly, her eyes narrowed.  I took the mask in my left hand and dropped into the side of the barge in pain as I felt my shoulder finally give way.  Mistress Ader tisked and shook her head in disapproval in the same way she would handle the youngest students at the Academy.  

I faced an unexpected fight after we carried Clariel back to the palace.  Queen Tathiel had the unconcious Clariel bound and demanded her immediate execution.  I was exhausted, barely able to stand, but I tried to dissuade her.  I put all of my remaining energy into pleading Clariel’s case.  Yes, Clariel had loosed two powerful Free Magic beings and fled. Yes, she had potentially murdered members of the goldsmith's guild. Yet she had not summoned her own servants. She had not ventured into death or beyond the rift to seek and master her own servants, merely made use of Free Magic beings already summoned and bound by others. She had just seen her parents murdered in front of her. She'd been imprisoned in Abhorsen's-my-house. Clariel was a powerful but unschooled charter mage endowed with the power of one of the Great Charters flowing through her blood. We had left and untrained Berserk with tremendous innate skill unsupervised in the one place where all the secrets and terrors of Death are kept.  In the light of all which had just conspired, I begged Queen Tathiel to pardon my cousin Clariel, but she would not be swayed.  The best I was able to do was convince the Queen to allow Clariel to awaken and be questioned about her actions before executing her.  

_[Librarian's note: There are some annotations in the margins here.  One, in a different hand, notes 'No-face was not entirely unsupervised'.  An addendum is made next to it in Abhorsen Belatiel's hand: 'This is true, at the time you were probably worse than no supervision, left to your own devices for all those years while my family hunted in Roble's Town.  You had loosened from the tight bindings and orders of centuries of Abhorsen.  In retrospect, I'm surprised I didn't expect trouble.  I'm also surprised you would bring attention to that period of your existence, considering all of your insignificant failures.  Have you considered if you want future Abhorsen to be taught not to provide you fish for the remainder of your service?']_

In the face of this, I made a miscalculation.  I allowed, nay, helped Clariel to escape before she could be executed.  I provided her with food, money, and transport to leave the Kingdom and cross the Great Rift.  I have often wondered if I was influenced by the Free Magic we had just bound inside Clariel.  My conviction that I was doing the right thing was inescapable.  I wanted only to repay my life debt and save her.  I was new to my bells, untrained, not wise to the ways of the world.  I did not consider that the influence of the Charter fades beyond the Rift where there are no charter stones.  I did not think about the nature of Free Magic beyond the rift.  I did not worry that our binding might be more easily broken where there is no Charter to maintain it.  I was only sure that I was doing the right thing to repay my life debt.  I allowed Clariel to leave, which the Mogget has referred to as the single stupidest decision ever made by an Abhorsen.  That little cat is wrong about many things, but may not be wrong about this.  

I should have been more vigilant, actively monitoring Death for a new, incredible power.  Instead I let Clariel drift from my mind as she had drifted out to sea.  I turned to the business of repairing the Kingdom with Queen Tathiel, which would have gone much more smoothly had I not so severely damaged our relationship from the very start.  I should not have disregarded Clariel's warning that she would become a Free Magic sorcerer again.  Mistress Ader placed beacons along the Rift in life and around the first gate in Death to watch for any new, great power, but I  was so overwhelmed by the dual burden of training to be Abhorsen while also holding the role that I neglected them and allowed them to fade after Mistress Ader passed the Ninth gate.

_[Librarian's note: The scratchy hand returns here to leave an annotation.  ' You were correct at first, little mutt.  I was indeed wrong- letting No-face escape wasn't the stupidest thing you've done, allowing those beacons to fail was.']_

Many decades passed until the whispers of a new, extremely powerful necromancer began that I thought to take the Mogget to retrace Clariel's movements on that horrible day.  If I had thought to do it in the months before she woke up- well, I did not think.  The Mogget gave a recount of their travels, so I took it with me to Mount Aunden in a paperwing.  The mountain reeked of Free Magic from quite a distance, the sharp acidic tang hitting us before the mountain was more than a small speck on the horizon.  It took some difficulty to land the craft on the north face of the grey peak.  The Mogget led me along the treeline, stopping occasionally to investigate between the ledges of rock.  Eventually it reappeared from a crevice to flick it's long white tail to invite me to follow. I slipped down the hollow, under a ledge, and used Cleave to create a door in the stone where the granite bore the deep scratches of a decidedly inhuman nature.   At the end of the small tunnel I found nothing but the broken remains of a sarcophagus and the stench of residual Free Magic powerful enough to make me drop to all fours and retch onto the dusty floor of the chamber.  Greater power than I cared to think about had been expended there, but there was nothing left.  The bells were gone- Necromancer's bells, according to the Mogget.  

Bells missing, a sarcophagus destroyed, and the stench of Free Magic strong enough to stop a Berserk.  I could also feel a closer presence of Death than I cared to feel.  Someone had opened a every large door into Death at this place and had held it open long enough to allow something very powerful through.  The power, in a place known to Clariel to contain bells- I fear that my binding has failed, that I failed both Clariel and the Kingdom. I fear that I fell victim to that which tempts all who walk in Death- the desire to spin again the wheel of fate, to cast different lots from those which fate has already cast.  I wonder if I could have better served my life debt to Clariel by ending hers.  If Clariel has loosed her bonds and indeed continued her exposure to Free Magic and become a necromancer- or worse, a Dead creature herself- was her second chance at a life in the forest worth the outcome?  Did I save Clariel from Queen Tathiel's anger or did I just condemn her to a worse fate than I could have ever imagined?  I was saddened as I surveyed the damage at Mount Aunden, remembering the beautiful girl in a blue and gold headscarf standing startled in the bronze doorway of the Three Windows Room at the Academy in Beliasere.  She was so full of life, ready to take on whatever she was about to face.  I had faint dreams of a future...I could have done nothing differently at the time.  I was too fresh to the Abhorsen, too new to know to question my motives closely.  

Yet I am now Abhorsen grown, an old man.  That tea lesson in the Three Windows Room was a long lifetime ago, and I cannot allow myself to lull in the follies of my youth.  I have a duty to the Kingdom and I must bear it.  I am making preparations to seek out the powerful necromancer causing difficulty in the borderlands.  I suspect I will find a trace of Clariel when I arrive, and I must be prepared to face the consequences of my actions of long ago.  She is of Abhorsen blood and required two Abhorsen to bind once before.  I fear what will come of an unrestrained necromancer of Abhorsen blood left too long to prosper in the distant lands.

_[Librarian's note: Here an annotation in the margins notes 'Yes, two Abhorsen, one newly bred and one nearly dead. It took both of you to do nearly everything back then.  It's a wonder any of us survived after Maderael died.' A series of short, pointed lines in Abhorsen Belatiel's pen are entered above this annotation with a small doodle of a dead cat.]_

"Spells fade, bindings fail," Clariel said to me when I helped her escape.  I swear by the charter I bear I will correct the horror I unleashed on the Kingdom.  I will walk this necromancer past the ninth gate, and if it is Clariel, I will give myself to bind her there if necessary to save my cousin from a horrible fate.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Christmas, NightsMistress! This is my first Yuletide (and my first-ever fic exchange!), and I had so much fun writing for you! Thanks for all the awesome ideas!


End file.
